I'm a talent strategist, practitioner, speaker and author who operates as CEO of TalentCulture Consulting Group. I'm also a social media community catalyst who founded TalentCulture World of Work, as well as #TChat forums on Twitter and BlogTalkRadio. I’m passionate about helping leaders recruit and retain stellar talent. I've partnered with brands like Google, Microsoft, IBM and many growing software, digital technology companies at the intersection of talent management, HR technology and social enterprise. I was named one of the “10 Most Influential People in Community Management Today” by Brandwatch; one of the “Top 25 Trendsetters in HR” by HR Examiner; a “Top 100 Business, Leadership & Tech Twitter Accounts” by Huffington Post; and one of the “Nifty 50 Top Women in Technology on Twitter” by Webbiquity. I can be reached via email at mbiro@talentculture.com, on Twitter at @TalentCulture and @MeghanMBiro, or on LinkedIn.

Who Owns The Brand You?

I’ve written a lot about the positive aspects of brand, brand humanization, allowing employees to be brand ambassadors, and to free up their personal brand to evolve just as real people do.

What I haven’t talked about as much is who owns your company’s brand. Does the organization? Do the brand ambassadors? Where do you draw the line, and when?

I’ll tell you a story about a software technology company (one of my clients) which hired a well-known thought leader to be the brand ambassador for one of its product lines. The company allowed the brand ambassador to Tweet and blog under his name, although the product line had an established social media presence on a number of channels – among them Twitter, LinkedIn, and G+. The result? You guessed it: people interested in the brand started following, and having conversations with, the brand ambassador, who refused to use the brand handle and insisted on using his handle. The company’s product line social media efforts didn’t build a following; everyone was watching the man behind the curtain. In two years of employment (and talks with management which belatedly realized what was happening,) the brand ambassador assured the company this was best practice, followers understood the brand was separate from the ambassador, and all would turn out well.

Shocker alert: the person’s personal brand left the company for greener pastures, and so did the person’s (and the brand’s) thousands of followers. The company scrambled to hire a brand ambassador who understood the need to separate church and state. The new ambassador was hired: a person with a less fragile ego and more commitment to the company. Nevertheless it took over a year to build back a following for the product line’s brand. Kind of a complex situation overall if you dig deeper.

Could this have been avoided? Of course, with a little care, and perhaps a better understanding of human motivation and personal brand.

I believe everyone owns their own personal brand. Companies and leadership must see the value of this concept for a successful social workplace recipe. If a brand ambassador chooses to represent the company and/or its brands, the individual should do so in a transparent way, e.g. set up a separate twitter handle incorporating the person’s name or handle and the brand handle or company name. An example: @SusieQBrandX, instead of @SusieQ. In this way the company respects the individual’s personal brand while providing a company-blessed channel for the individual to share information about the company, employer brand.

Some people share my sentiments and many do not – I’d love to hear your thoughts – but we’re all working towards the same goal: making it simple for brand ambassadors to represent the company, while ensuring messages are consistent and authentic. It’s important to ensure the line between the company’s brand and the person’s brand is documented and respected. It’s also important to ensure followers of the brand aren’t confused.

Another company I consult with recently hired a social community manager who also is responsible for social media and employer branding. This individual is very political in the Party sense, so an agreement was reached before employment to protect both the individual’s right to communicate her political thoughts and also support the organization’s point of view. This was accomplished by creating a new handle for the community manager (see the @SusieQBrandX example above) and supporting its launch with a blog. So far, a few months in, all is well. No lines have been crossed and everyone involved has declared the arrangement a success (so far, so good). Susie still has the freedom to voice her views on her own handle on her own personal brand.

So what are ground rules for ensuring your employees, who are brand ambassadors, can represent the company’s views and still profess their own?

Here are five social ideas for leadership:

1) Create a best practices guideline document for brand ambassadors. This doesn’t have to be as bulky or draconian as most employee handbooks. The goal is to establish do’s and don’ts for employees who choose to represent the company on social media. Have a use case for those who don’t want to dilute their personal brand and another for employees who are willing to co-brand a social media identity

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You make some great points in an area that is so cloudy for most people participating within the social media scene. I am sure this will become even more of a complex issue as more of the Millennial generation of professionals enter the scene. So many of these future leaders embrace an anywhere, anytime, any device mantra that it is hard if not impossible to truly define the individual from their business.

Excellent article Meghan. There’s nothing as effective as a real life example to wake people up. I’ve shared this article where I can and I’ll keep it in mind for the future when I’m trying to convince a client why they should be branding their company online rather than an individual.

Thank you so much Sherryl. Real life examples help bridge the communication chasm that often occurs in the leadership and social workplace realm. Clients do need thoughtful advise with social media efforts due to the complexities and the rapid pace of innovation in the personal and employer branding space. It’s all about education and ambassadorship.

Meghan, some great points and definitely some good cautions as well. One of the challenges, and particularly fuzzy areas, is people with an existing audience that is valuable to the brand. Consider the example of @jowyang.

For community managers, customer service or individuals with a public personal side that is simply disjointed from the brand (if its in conflict, there is a bigger issue), separating accounts is definitely appropriate.

However, when hiring someone because of their existing profile and respect in the market, it is murky. There is benefit to the company of existing profiles that are known, respected and followed. Building an audience for a second profile takes time and by splitting the individual’s efforts across two accounts (because they won’t likely abandon their own personal account) it is likely neither account actually has the impact that it could.

One of the challenges here is the importance we put on individual spokespeople. I believe there is an opportunity to balance individual and brand accounts in a way that encourages multiple voices over pursuing superstars. Guidelines provide exposure for true brand accounts, developing an audience for those that are interested in the category, and departures and additions are taken in stride in social media. I don’t know that this can work in all businesses, but its a model I would like to see more discussion around.

Personal note: when I see the same “person” follow me twice, from both a brand and personal account back-to-back, I normally only follow the personal account back. This is one of the split account challenges I see.

Thank you to the personal brand we know as “Wittlake” – Smiles. Appreciate your kind words and attention to the nuance in my post. These are insightful and timely comments. And yes, @jowyang is certainly one useful example on Twitter. The more case studies we can point to – the better at this time.

Agreed – if one’s personal brand is completely disjointed this may expose a macro issue regarding a lack of mesh with the organization’s core beliefs and values. This is why I believe the more engaged employees are – the more workplace ambassadors will be. You’ve basically nailed precisely where the ambiguity lives regarding this social workplace and leadership topic. Brand ambassador guidelines simply provide leaders and organizations a way to establish or reinforce very basic mission, vision and values. Opening up communication channels within the workplace needs to start from this place in order for brand ambassadors, community managers to be empowered, loyal and effective. I’m including both roles as one here simply to share the big theme for now. **I would live to dive into the topic of brand ambassador verses community manager role in greater detail for a future post.

Personal note: I tend to follow both the personal and business brands on Twitter to listen and enagage themes and updates more closely. Bottom line: Social is always a personal choice first and one that may even change over the course of time. Stay dynamic! Stay social!

Great advice, Meghan. Just as organization need a content strategy, they also need a brand ambassador strategy. Creating the principles and guidance of drawing a social media line between personal brand and company brand are crucial. I like the approach of adding the brand name as an extension to the “company” personal one. Thanks! Jon

A informative and important post for brands and businesses of all sizes. The takeaway for employers and employees alike is clear: make it clear who owns what. Currently there is a pending lawsuit with a former employee of a Chicago, Interior Design firm over this very subject, Who owns your Twitter and Facebook.

Thank you for an informative and important post for brands and businesses of all sizes. The takeaway for employers and employees alike is clear: make it clear who owns what. Currently there is a pending lawsuit with a former employee of a Chicago, Interior Design firm over this very subject, Who owns your Twitter and Facebook.

Great informative article. As a start-up company in a adult sex toy company, we’ve been trying to figure out the best way to incorporate brand ambassador’s into a social media plan. I’m learning as “organic” as social media seems, the winners have a very concrete plan and stick to it. Although a lot is learned along the way, one doesn’t want to learn at the expense of the brand…thanks for the insight